The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will soon begin monitoring all persons entering the United States from West Africa for 21 days as part of the group’s ongoing effort to combat the spread of Ebola.

Starting next Monday, health workers, journalists and all other
travelers coming to the US from three of the African nations
currently fighting the worst Ebola disease outbreak in history
will have to adhere to strict guidelines announced on Wednesday
this week by the CDC.

"These new measures I'm announcing today will give additional
levels of safety so that people who develop symptoms of Ebola are
isolated quickly," CDC Director Tom Frieden told reporters
during a press briefing on Wednesday, according to the Washington
Post.

Travelers entering the US from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia
will all be subject to the new monitoring system, which will
involve collecting contact information from individuals returning
from those countries and then following up with them daily for
three weeks. Starting Monday, the monitoring system will be
initiated at facilities in the states of New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Georgia, Virginia and Maryland.

“People will receive a kit when they arrive at the airport
that explains what the symptoms are, a guide to telephone numbers
and a thermometer,” the Post reported following Frieden’s
presser. “State and local officials will maintain daily
contact with travelers for the entire 21 days.”

Persons infected with the Ebola virus may start showing symptoms
as soon as two days after contracting the disease, but only for
upwards of three weeks. Further, the virus is only communicable
when an individual is showing symptoms.

So far, only two Americans have contracted Ebola while in the US.
Both patients — health care workers from Texas — were diagnosed
with the disease after caring for Thomas Duncan, a 42-year-old
Liberian national who traveled to the US with the virus and was
unsuccessfully treated at a facility in Dallas before dying
earlier this month.